The Prospect for Geography in the 1990s

Abstract

Geography now exhibits a better balance among competing emphases than it has enjoyed at any period since the second world war. The last several decades have witnessed a healthy resurgence of physical geography. Human geography has been enriched bya broad array of methodological tools and innovative

perspectives. Both human and physical geographers are reclaiming geography's birthrights of regional expertise and research. The challenge the discipline faces in the 1990s is the need to increase geography's effectiveness by augmenting the number of geographers obtaining advanced degrees, strengthening undergraduate

curricula in colleges and universities, and adopting larger-scale modes for investigating major geographic problems.

Substantively, geographers would be wise to give priority to regional approaches, to ecological problems, and to building a

corps of practitioners who will address practical problems. A better balance between anaysis and synthesis would broaden the

discipline's appeal and constitutencies.